RIP Martin Ravallion

Yesterday we lost one of the brilliant economists of our time, Martin Ravallion. He was the inaugural Chair of Economics at Georgetown University. He worked for 24 years at World Bank and spent most of his career on research related to poverty and policies. He is known as the ‘Father of One Dollar a Day” poverty line.

In his most famous article ‘How long will it take to lift One Billion people out of Poverty?’, he presents multiple trajectory scenarios to achieve the targets. Based on key variables that impact the poverty: mean and inequality of poverty distribution across the world, there is a:

“Pessimistic approach”: All countries reduce the pace of poverty reduction efforts, excluding China. This is anticipated to take 50 years or more

“Optimistic approach”: All developing countries focus on reducing poverty at the current pace

In his interview with EL PAIS in 2019, he suggested that it is essential that everyone should stop thinking of inequality reduction as a Communist cause and should understand the implications of it on overall economic growth. There is no better system than capitalism that is more efficient in reducing the poverty and inequality. The goal is not to achieve zero inequality or zero poverty, but to achieve manageable levels of both.

In his Policy Research Working Paper published in September 2022, he argues social protection is not a luxury good, when controlled for confounders such as relative prices, weak governance in low-income countries and access to information-communication technologies. This is applicable even during the times of pandemic.

In his most recent article published in November of this year, he studied the Behavioral response through Physical mobility during and post COVID-19 pandemic. The behavioral response to the threat of infection can be highly heterogeneous across income strata and over time during the course of the pandemic. In the absence of enforced policies to support social distancing, it will be the poorer and yet relatively equal areas that are more vulnerable to the spread of infection.

His research articles, essays, papers and books now easily available over internet and World Bank archives. It is recommended for all the policy makers and enthusiasts that are trying to solve poverty and/or inequality challenges.

Link: https://economicsandpoverty.com/

May his soul rest in peace!